1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to molecular biological methods, equipment and reagents for sequencing target nucleic acid (DNA, RNA, cDNA, etc) molecules to enable both highly parallel and long ‘read-length’ nucleotide sequencing.
2. Description of the Related Art
DNA is a long polymer consisting of units called nucleotides. The DNA polymers are long chains of single units, which together form molecules called nucleic acids. Nucleotides can be one of four subunits (adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) & thymine (T)) and, when in a polymer, they may carry the genetic information in the cell. DNA comprises two long chains of nucleotides comprising the four different nucleotides bases (e.g. AGTCATCGTAGCT . . . etc) with a backbone of sugars and phosphate groups joined by ester bonds, twisted into a double helix and joined by hydrogen bonds between the complementary nucleotides (A hydrogen bonds to T and C to G in the opposite strand). The sequence of nucleotide bases along the backbone may determine individual hereditary characteristics.
The central dogma of molecular biology generally describes the normal flow of biological information: DNA can be replicated to DNA, the genetic information in DNA can be ‘transcribed’ into mRNA, and proteins can be translated from the information in mRNA, in a process called translation, in which protein subunits (amino acids) are brought close enough to bond, in order (as dictated by the sequence of the mRNA & therefore the DNA) by the binding of tRNA (each tRNA carries a specific amino acid dependant on its sequence) to the mRNA.